2007-12-03

Apparently indeed its all Steyn all day here at Third Edge of the Sword.

In response to the recent attack on Macleans regarding Steyn's book excerpts, Big City Lib has decided that a government inquiry to whether or not an author offended a religious group is an interesting story...just not in any way shape or form "censorship" and who the hell brought up that kind of topic?

Since I hate to be one of those "trolls" the commenters seem so concerned with (ie. people who disagree with the author), I'll just attack the post and/or individual comments from here:

If Macleans plans to dabble in political pornography, though, why don't they go straight to torture pics from Abu Ghraib?

-Big City Lib

Here's an interesting question: if they had done that, and a group of American citizens living in Canada (or Canadian citizens of American descent) decided to take Macleans before the Human Rights Kangaroo Court of Unbiased Decisions (HRKCUD) for 'disseminating hatred' of the prophet George W. Bush, would Big City Lib be equally supportive of that complaint?

Mark Steyn is a fabulist, and on that basis alone, is not worthy of occupying media space that better, more honest writers should be given a chance to fill.

-Ti-Guy

If Mark Steyn is undeserving of work due to being a "fabulist", how the hell is Dan Savage still employed?

What I find interesting is the trolls' definition of censorship.

I guess they never give consideration to the fact their partisan attacks on liberal blogs, their concentrated efforts to change the channel on these blogs, their continuous efforts to silence liberal blogs by posting their insulting nonsense over and over again, is also censorship.

-Gayle

Yes, I guess that its our fault on the right for having such a narrow definition of censorship. I see how what she describes is exactly like what is happening with Macleans. It's just like the coercive power of the state punishing "unacceptable" speech, only without the state and without the punishment. Otherwise, dead ringer.

The righty trolls always try to claim that their detractors agree on the substance of a human rights complaint before the tribunal has even taken place. What an odd understanding of jurisprudence.

-Ti-Guy

How anybody can put "jurisprudence" and HRKCUD in a sentence together is laughable at best. And righties would kill for even a single leftie acknowledging that the tribunal itself is an affront, whether the individual cases are won or lost. You know, some sort of belief in support of that little thing called legal rights (which on the whole are far more important than these silly "human rights" the lefties get in such an irrational swoon over.

So, tough luck if no one else rises to defend your right to absolute freedom of expression, which is really nothing more than demanding the right to spew the most ridiculous fabrications while avoiding any challenges to them.

-Ti-Guy

Again, the point sails right over this dude's head. If there were any "ridiculous fabrications" involved, that can be handled in an actual court of law. By throwing a "case" to HRKCUD, there's a tacit admission that the offending speech isn't by nature libellous or false, and that the HRKCUD is there as a last resort when reality doesn't go your way.

I take free speech seriously for serious speech. Steyn's diatribes against Muslims--ie. if we don't breed/embrace our whiteness they'll invade and make us all grows beards--is not serious speech. Its the ravings of a far-right loon, and IT IS ALSO clearly a racist diatribe.

-Big City Lib

Now again we run into the problem I alluded to above: throwing aside this notion that Mark Steyn isn't "serious" but, say, vitally protected speech like Maureen Dowd is, how exactly is it "also clearly a racist diatribe". You can repeat it a few times to yourself if you think it makes it more true, but I'm not sure how "the population will only grow if more babies are born or if more Muslims are imported, and examine what a culture full of imported Muslims will look like" is "clearly racist". It discusses race, to be sure, and takes a rather dim view of a certain one to be sure, but if that's the definition of racism than the term has lost all meaning. I don't mean to say this so that BCL will understand the term has lost all meaning: he uses it like this deliberately knowing this to be true and having his own very perverted agenda being furthered by distoring this meaning. Just a little analysis for analysis' sake.

You don't have any real regard for quality expression. You just want to score your political points.

-Ti-Guy

See, I'm not the only one to notice thi...er, wait, sorry folks, nevermind. He's not talking about BCL but rather complaining about a person's defense of free speech.

I do, for the most part. In the "West", and in Canada more particularly, radical Islam is a side-show.

Terrible stuff. Hardly going to bring down the Canadian, or the UK, or the French government though ,is it?

-Big City Lib

Radical Islam in Western Canada is a sideshow. Unless you're Macleans, or Ezra Levant, or somebody who enjoys having Prime Ministers with heads on their shoulders. Or live in Quebec, apparently.

BCL also apparently ignores some of what Steyn wrote about what has already happened in the UK and France, and several other Muslim-concentrated European countries. Why was a sodomite French mayor killed by a Muslim? Doesn't this put a censorship-style chill in place slightly more than having Dr. Roy make a comment on rabble.ca? What happens when these countries, having embraced "proportional representation" based election systems which place undue political control on relatively small voting blocs, start having 30%+ of the populace in favour of a Sudanese-style government?

More importantly, I think its clear here why BCL and his ilk are so against Steyn's speech. The left has no good answers to these questions. The right doesn't have many either, but it has more, and it has the willingness to make tough decisions to come up with a good answer. All the left can do is start more HRKCUDs and pray to Richard Dawkins that one day these instruments aren't turned against them. Sorry, but that's not good enough.

But then again, I don't have any need to engage in hate speech (as defined by the law), unlike conservatives, for whom it appears to be as vital as oxygen. Why that is remains a mystery.

-Ti-Guy

Let me set the definitions of what "hate speech" is, rather than Svend Robinson and his sodomist buddies, and you'll find yourself unwittingly "engaging in hate speech" ever day. There, mystery solved.

Frankly, I can picture no greater disrespect for European culture than a cohort of rightwingers who know absolutely nothing about the things mentioned above.

-Ti-Guy

Again, Ti sets his own narrow definitions and then laughs when he can find people who don't fit within them. The Magna Carta, Royal British Navy, Protestantism, and Adam Smith are all part of European culture, and people like Ti spit on them every day. There you go, you anti-European bastard.

What does this have to do with your comment about truth and kangaroo courts?

Why am I not surprised that this discussion is now veering off into every single example of some nazi's racist hysteria?

-Ti-Guy

What Ti guy quotes is an example of, well, how truth has no defense in HRKCUD, and then just blithly asks what it has to do with anything. If there was a better online example of plugging ones ears and yelling loudly lest something interesting is heard, I've yet to encounter it. As for the second point, for the person to bring up the evil racism of Mark Steyn, he sure gets upset when somebody makes a valid point against him that's coined in racial terms.

Hey Ti-Guy, where were you on Saturday? I was looking forward to getting my "Face punched through the back of my fucking head."

-Raging Ranter

I guess Raging needs to write an application to his nearest HRKCUD ASAP...